


Last Suit

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: All the suits Tony made for Peter over the years, and there are only two he everboughthim.





	Last Suit

The suit arrives two days before Peter needs it.

Usually, when Mr. Stark sends him a suit, the only note it comes with is something like _WEAR ME_ or _DO NOT GET MUSTARD ON THIS ONE_ or sometimes just _FOR PETE_ or _TO PETE_.  There’s a subtle difference in mood between those last two that Peter has never been able to parse.

This one comes with a video that Peter can only watch with his head turned partly away from it.  He gets snippets: _Look, if I could trust you not to show up wearing something you got at the_ mall _, I wouldn’t have to_ and _little low on modifications, but_ and _I was torn between Armani and Zegna because, you know, with your silhouette, you could_ and _virgin wool, so think of all those sheep deprived on your account_.

The suit is bespoke.  Black (virgin) wool with thin lapels.

 _I mean_ , Mr. Stark says from the past, from whenever he recorded this, _it’s not like I don’t have your measurements.  And if they change, hey-presto, Karen--you’re calling her Karen, right?--will just put in for a new one._

Muting the video makes it easier for him to watch it.  There’s no date-time stamp on the file, or at least not an obvious one--Ned could pull it, probably, if Peter really wants to ask--but he thinks it was filmed two, maybe three years ago, if he wants to go by when he remembers Mr. Stark really favoring that shirt, which is a weird thing for him to know, a weird thing for him to remember.  Except he knows it must have been after what happened in Osaka.

 _Anyway_ , the video concludes, _this way you don’t have to worry about it.  You are 100% prepared, courtesy of yours truly, as always--don’t say I never did anything for you.  I mean, you never say that, you could out-earnest a chipmunk in a Boy Scout cap, but… you know. I hope you know._

But Peter never has.

The suit he’s supposed to wear to Mr. Stark’s funeral is only the second one Mr. Stark’s bought for him, as opposed to all the ones Mr. Stark made for him, which have gotten hard to count.

The first time Mr. Stark sent him a designer suit, a _suit_ -suit, was when Peter was in Osaka.  It was his year abroad. Mr. Stark flew in on an impulse-- _Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been in the same room?  I’m seriously asking, because I sure as hell don’t know. I sent you that Talisker single-malt for you ringing in twenty-one and I didn’t even get a glass of it_ \--and booked out the city’s best restaurant for the night.

_Mr. Stark, all I have with me are, like, the same two pairs of jeans I’ve been wearing this whole trip and--_

_Okay, Julia Roberts, I see where you’re going with this.  Look, text me your address and I’ll make something happen.  The magic of e-commerce._

An hour later, the suit had come via a private mail carrier.  Tom Ford, dark blue sharkskin wool. He took a picture of himself and sent it to May-- _Parker.  Peter Parker._ In the mirror, he looked like a stranger.

He met Mr. Stark in the lobby, Mr. Stark grinning at him and whipping off his sunglasses as he came in from the white winter glare: _Well, hello there, gorgeous_.

Then he actually stepped back, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said.   _Let’s rephrase that, shall we?  No, actually, let’s not, let’s just… delete and move forward.  Never happened. That right there is why you don’t start drinking on the flight over._

And for the rest of the night, it was impossible for Peter to bring it up.  Mr. Stark spent half his life giving press conferences and if there was something he didn’t want to talk about, he didn’t; a twist here, an omission there, verbal jujitsu, until whatever question you wanted to ask was like a word you’d typed out too many times in a row, something that had lost all its meaning.

 _I want to be a good guy,_ Mr. Stark said.   _Not just “one of the good guys,” you know, but an actually good guy._

And there were a thousand things Peter wanted to say-- _I think you’re a good guy_ and _I like this suit_ and _Yes, yeah, I would, I will, let’s do it_ \--but somehow he said none of this.  Because underneath all that, he thinks, _I want you to be happy, I don’t want you to have that look on your face, not with me, I don’t want you to feel guilty, I don’t want that at all._

Then the night was over and Mr. Stark flew back to New York and Peter didn’t talk to him again for three months.

But he still has the Osaka suit in his closet and now he takes it out and lays it down beside the last suit, the funeral suit, and he tries to figure out what other way he could have gone from one to the other, tries to figure out if all those years ago he was kind or just scared, if it would have made a difference either way.  If it would have been worth it. If it even would have worked.

 _FOR PETE, TO PETE,_ and he still doesn’t know the difference, doesn’t know whatever it is he’s supposed to know.  But in the black suit, he doesn’t look like a stranger, just himself.


End file.
